For those convinced that building is an indispensable component of Model Aviation

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Cleveland Cloudster 900 - Horizontal Tail Hinge Wire Retention

Electric Cloudster 900 Project

Today was spent working through a hinge wire retention system that connects the elevator hinge halves to the stab hinge halves of the horizontal tail. Earlier it was said that the hinge piano wire was .032" in diameter, which turned out to be wrong. Instead the hinge wire is .033" in diameter. A DuBro hinge shown below was selected because the .033" wire was a force fit in the .031" hinge loops. One of the loops was cut off as shown below.

This loop was forced onto the hinge wire to serve as a stop. The fit is so tight it is virtually impossible to remove without pliers. This end of the hinge wire was filed flat (blunted) and the loop was positioned up against the hinge half as shown below. The length of the wire that extends out beyond the hinge on this blunt end is used to grasp with point nose pliers and pull on to extract the hinge wire out of the hinges.

The other loop on the DuBro hinge was also cut off, but a small tongue was left on the bottom as shown below.

A .032" drill bit was selected from the Micro Mark set of bits shown below.

The removable hinge loop (or stop) with the tongue was drilled out with the .032" bit as shown below to provided a friction fit with .033" hinge wire.

The removable stop's friction fit was tight enough to hold on the hinge wire, but loose enough to slide onto the wire with a little pressure as shown below. After the tapered end of the hinge wire is inserted through all of the hinges, the 3/32" edge of an a metal plate is placed up against the blunt end of the wire. Then the removable stop is pushed on the end of the tapered wire. The back of a No. 11 X-Acto blade is then butted up against one side of the removable stop and slid down along the side of the wire until the removable stop contacts the outer edge of the hinge half, thus trapping the hinge wire between the two outside hinges as shown below. This is a very simple and functional way to hold the continuous hinge wire in place............................Tandy